AAAAAIGH OVERLOAD

This isn't really a news post, but I just wanted to say.. Fabric.com has a "design wall" feature that lets indecisive sorts like me trip merrily through pages and pages of fabric swatches and end up with something like this (click to view full-size):

My quest for fabrics to support the new master-bedroom-color-scheme has come to a standstill here. Now what? I WANT THEM ALL.  ALL!  MUAH, HA-HA HA. HA.



Okay. Seriously though. I need a curtain fabric (more on that later... I have evil plans for the closet doors), and I'm thinking of making some pillowcases in fun prints.  There's actually not a lot of opportunity to coordinate things--it's a small space--and I figure the pillows are sitting there on the bed anyway, so... might as well.  In addition, I'm thinking of doing some weirder things (matting some artwork with fun fabrics... wrapping drawer fronts... etc.), which I think would be good outlets for the more graphic/expensive prints, since I wouldn't need much.

I did order the duvet cover from my "inspiration" post, and would like to take a moment to thank the Mr.. This will be master bedroom duvet number four, I believe (don't fret: I'm an Overstock/Smart Bargains/IKEA fiend), and thus far he's demonstrated incredible patience with my bedding schizophrenia.  This one's the one, folks. I can feel it.*

*By this I mean both the man, and the duvet.

Lavender Woes

Our bedroom is purple.

There's a picture of it here.  Well, that's the guest bedroom, but it was the same color before we repainted it.

Purple walls are a tiny bit problematic. First, it's not very manly. Second, most things that coordinate with it aren't very manly.  The Mr. is manly, and this is his bedroom too.

So... "why don't we paint over it?"  Yeah, that would be (relatively) easy.  The problem is...

we've grown attached.

The Mr. might mind me admitting to the world that he likes his purple, but I feel like I'm right there with him. Never in a million years would I have chosen any shade of purple for my bedroom walls, and given the "coordination dilemmas" it poses I thought I'd want to get rid of it a.s.a.p.

In college there was a whole building whose insides were painted salmon pink. I'm not talking "ahem, ahem, excuse me, I'm pink"--this was full-on, Pepto, hold-on-to-your-retinas pink. Somebody had done a study where they found that particular shade to be the most intellectually stimulating or something.

Turns out, our light-gray-lavender walls do exactly the opposite.  It's relaxing... that room feels calm and cool at all times, which is actually a welcome respite from the gold-and-orange tones of the rest of the house. The color is tricky, too--it changes throughout the day, and where there are shadows can look bluer or grayer.

Bottom line, we don't want it to go away. That still leaves the problem of finding a way to "pull the room together" without making it look like a princess playroom.  After a couple of years of having the Mr. come around the corner to find me standing in the middle of the room staring at nothing in particular and stuck in a thought circle ("purple." "girly." "blue?" "girly." "purple.") I think I've finally come up with a way to de-privilege (?) the purple but keep it around:

The real newcomers here are the second and third from the left.  Fourth from the left represents the curtains we already have.  The "accent colors" are the last on the right, and they're coming from two quilts that we leave at the foot of the bed and swap out partway through the year.  We already have a red pillow that we use with the red quilt; I think a small pillow or some shams could be swappable items that would mean we'd get two totally different looks from the same palette.

NOW I need to find a comforter cover that brings in the linen-y/khaki/light-brown I'm looking for. Maybe some art, that I can put in a big frame with a yellowy, decorative paper backdrop?  I'd appreciate any help finding yellow-and-brown things: